


Once Burned

by irrelevant



Category: One Piece
Genre: Backstory, Devil Fruit, Logia, M/M, Pre-Canon, Smoke Trumps Fire, Sometimes Old Cliches Are True, Son of a D
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:01:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrelevant/pseuds/irrelevant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loguetown stank of pirates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Burned

**Author's Note:**

> driftingforward wanted virgin!Ace who wants to lose the virginity, but loses control of his fire when he tries. I'm pretty sure this fits. [written wayyyyy back in '08 before the Marineford shit hit the fan]

Loguetown stank of pirates.

Dock after dock groaned under the weight of moored ships. Gaudily dressed crews swaggered the streets half lit and looking for trouble, and finding it more often than not. One group of drink-sodden sailors had staggered up from the wharfside pubs and was mapping an unsteady route through the waterfront district. From half a street away Smoker briefly observed its weaving, swaying progress before crossing to the opposite side of the street. On a normal day he’d have arrested the lot of them. Today was not a normal day.

Pausing beside a weathered street lamp, he touched flame to the end of his unlit cigar and squinted at a blue-painted sign hanging over a plain wooden door. White Wake Inn. Typical. The name on the sign didn’t matter. He’d seen a hundred variations on the theme on almost every island he’d ever docked. Though this place’s owner had as little imagination as that of any harborside inn, the building looked well maintained. He’d stayed in worse. “Tashigi.”

“Y—yes, Commander, I’m… here?” Smoker’s newly assigned adjutant tripped over a katana nearly as long as she was tall and stumbled to a stop beside him. She saluted, a parade ground effort guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of the most psychotic drill sergeant, and also annoy the hell out of Smoker.

“I thought I told you to knock that off,” he said, then had to resist the urge to shock the confusion right off her face with some creative profanity. “Forget it. I’m staying here tonight. You’re at liberty until tomorrow, eight-hundred, same as the rest of the crew. Meet me at the base, front gate.”

The girl’s eyes, already magnified by her spectacles, widened even further. “But—but, sir. Shouldn’t we report in? This is your—”

“Did I ask for your opinion, Chief Petty Officer?”

“No sir, but—”

“Tashigi.”

She looked down at her feet. “Permission to report in tonight, sir.”

“Permission denied. When you’re at liberty you get drunk or laid or something along those lines. You don’t ask for duty.” Smoker studied the top of Tashigi’s dark head. The tips of her ears were bright red.

Smoker glared away a curious passerby then looked back down at Tashigi. What the hell. “Chief Petty Officer.”

“Sir?” She pushed her glasses into place and blinked at him.

“Secure rooms at this facility for both of us, then go find a bookshop or polish that sword or do whatever it is you do in your spare time.”

“Yes, Commander Smoker!” Now smiling, she ripped off another salute and advanced on the inn door with a determined expression. This time Smoker gave in to profanity, albeit under his breath.

The door closed behind Tashigi and Smoker chewed on his cigar some more while he eyed the inn’s facade. He could find a tavern easily—he could think of five off the top of his head—but this place was only a couple of streets up from the wharves, in a busy area. Smoker was betting on it having a taproom.

He hoped to hell it did. Tashigi might not need a drink, but this was his last night of freedom before his feet got officially nailed to the ground of the East Blue hellhole that’d spawned him. Alcohol was definitely in order. He tossed his cigar into the gutter and followed in Tashigi's footsteps.

He passed her in the inn’s front room. She was at the main desk, haranguing the innkeeper, shaking her finger at him and pointing over his shoulder to a sword mounted on the wall. Smoker ducked into the taproom before either of them saw him.

On second thought, he didn’t need a drink. He needed a goddamn bottle.

\--

South Blue single barrel: finest poison known to mankind, and at least one woman’s preferred method of self destruction. Smoker lifted his glass and sank half the contents. He dropped it on the bar, hunched his elbows to either side of it and stared at the liquor bottles layering the far wall. Typically he’d have been on hyper-alert, keeping an eye out for pirates, but his mind felt… empty. Apathetic.

He found himself almost enjoying the sensation.

Blank thoughts, numb mind. Weird state for him and his suspicious bastard mentality to be in. That’s why he was here though: to stop thinking for one damned day. Or in this case, night, since that was where day was fast heading.

The sunlight slanting through several small windows lay differently on the floor than it had when he’d entered. Afternoon had given way to evening. Behind Smoker, the taproom was sluggishly coming to life. He tuned out the noise and concentrated on the amber colored liquid in front of him.

He wasn’t a drunk—nothing of his deceased, lush of a mother in him—but when it came to bruised pride, Smoker believed in generous alcoholic plasters. God knew the past month and naval High Command had been hell on his dignity.

_There’s a great deal of unhappiness with the way you handled the Tarrant situation. The Admiralty favors an insubordination charge, but Lieutenant Commander Hina spoke for you, and it’s understood that there were extenuating circumstances. However, your current tour of duty on the Grand Line is terminated. You’re being reassigned._

Not his first time up against a charge of insubordination, and it wouldn't be his last. He didn't necessarily see that as a bad thing, but then he didn't consider exposing a corrupt superior’s corruption insubordination, either. Bastard had been a zoan, too—neko neko fruit, model: lion. If Smoker hadn’t taken him down, the body count would have been a lot higher than it ended up being.

_Insubordination, my ass._

Well, it had been his ass hanging out there, skin to the breeze, while his CO pussyfooted around and the Admiralty fingered him for its whipping boy. Tarrant was dead and so was the better part of two squadrons. Somebody had to take the public fall, and Smoker had been convenient.

_As you know, Loguetown is the last major port in East Blue before Reverse Mountain. The island and city itself, as well as two neighboring islands, will come under your jurisdiction. It’s hoped that you will accomplish what your predecessor failed to do, and clean the area out. There’s a deal too much riffraff entering the Grand Line through the Blues. High Command is understandably unhappy with this state of affairs and, recent incident aside, your record is impressive. No other marine or bounty hunter has better. The navy has faith in your capabilities along those lines._

Along those lines. More like, read between the lines. Stay inside the lines. Play nice with the higher-ups or your ass is grass and the Admiralty is the lawnmower.

They’d known he was from Loguetown. They’d also known he had a standing request not to be assigned there. Loguetown was the kind of cushy command many officers would have given an arm or leg for. For Smoker it was nothing short of corporal punishment, and his superiors knew it.

A fresh stream of bourbon topped up his glass. It winked at him, mellow gold in fading sunlight. He tilted the glass, deliberately spilling a few drops in private salute to the ex-whore who’d borne a pirate’s brat then washed the memory of both child and lover away in a flood of whiskey, before downing the rest.

The old saying was only half true. You could go home. You just couldn’t go back.

“Another?”

He shoved the tumbler towards the barkeep. “Leave the bottle.”

“Commander?”

Smoker looked up. Tashigi was standing at his elbow, staring around in bemusement. You’d think the girl had never been in a bar before. Hell, maybe she hadn’t. “You get the rooms taken care of?”

“Um, yes sir.” She tugged something from her uniform pocket and laid it on the bar. A key. “You’re in number ten.”

“Thanks,” Smoker grunted. “Lose the uniform and go find something to do. No, belay that a minute.”

Pulling his jitte from its loop, Smoker shoved it into Tashigi’s hands then shrugged out of his coat and yanked off his gloves. He stuck the gloves in the coat’s pockets and tugged two cigars free of the jacket. After a brief hesitation, he took two more. If this year got any worse, he thought wryly, he’d end up smoking two at once.

Hefting the coat’s heavy leather weight, Smoker heaved it at Tashigi. She caught it, barely, trying not very successfully to balance jitte, sword and coat. “Sir, what—?”

“Put them in my room. We’re all off duty tonight.”

Tashigi looked back and forth between the White Hunter’s regalia and Smoker’s bare chest. Her glance passed over the half full bottle of bourbon in front of him; paused, and flickered back. “Sir, are you sure that’s—”

“I’m sure it’s time for you to follow through, Chief Petty Officer.”

“Yes sir.” A not very well disguised sigh. Smoker let it slide (this time) and reached for his glass. When he lowered it, Tashigi had gone. He refilled the glass and lit a new cigar. It wasn't all the way dark yet and already he felt like the ragged end of a long night. He took another drink.

\--

The last of the bourbon sat in the bottom of Smoker’s glass. Shards of lamplight glittered, caught in liquid amber. How long had he been sitting here?

“Get you something else, Commander?”

The hand holding Smoker’s glass stopped midway to his mouth. He raised his head, his scowl colliding with the bartender’s bland gaze. They stared at each other over the raised tumbler for an uncomfortable moment. Smoker looked away first. “Don’t call me that,” he muttered. Then, “Why _did_ you call me that? Is it engraved on my forehead?”

“The small girl with the large sword referred to you as such. Additionally, the garment you arrived in has your marine creed inscribed on it in large, legible characters.”

“Right.” Smoker glanced at the glass in his hand, then set it down. If he was forgetting details like that, he’d had enough.

“If your business precludes using your title, you might want to ask your subordinate to be more careful.” Smoker shot a ‘don’t go there’ look at the bartender, but the guy smiled back, unfazed. “You’re somewhat more conspicuous than the average operative, you know.”

“I’m not a damned spy,” Smoker gritted out, “but I get the feeling you already know that.”

The bartender shrugged. “Maybe I do. But then, it’s rare for a ranking marine not to throw that rank around.”

There was enough truth in that statement to shut Smoker’s mouth on his retort. Like much else in this life, rank was a tool. You pulled it when you needed to and forgot it when you didn’t, or at least that’s how Smoker had always operated. A number of officers liked the obedience and fear their positions generated too much; many of Smoker’s issues with the navy stemmed from that pervasive attitude, which seemed to be more the norm than the exception lately.

His own recent promotion was three weeks old, and the reason for it had left a bad taste in his mouth. Following the official inquest, they’d thrown a ‘commander’ at him like a bone to a pariah dog. An afterthought, designed to pacify. To keep him towing the line. They wanted him broken to their harness, not broken for good.

Fetch. Heel. Sit. Stay.

Smoker’s mouth twisted in disgust, though with High Command or himself, he wasn’t sure.

“Going to be in town for a while?” The barkeep was leaning against the far counter, polishing a beer tankard and eyeing Smoker sidelong.

Smoker grimaced. “Define a while.”

“Longer than a week?”

“You could say that. What is this, twenty questions night?” he asked. When the other man didn’t answer, he turned to see what the hold up was.

The glass tankard dangled, forgotten, from the barkeep’s hand. He was staring past Smoker’s shoulder, mouth slightly open. Smoker started to follow that fixed stare—if he was about to be attacked he preferred to know—and that’s when he smelled the fire.

There was no mistaking the char of burnt leather and wood. The shouts came next, along with the sounds of tables being overturned and general panic. The barkeep ducked out from behind the bar, and Smoker turned the rest of the way around.

It looked worse than it was—the flames hadn’t yet caught hold—and Smoker guessed it wouldn’t take much to stifle the blaze eating busily away at a corner booth. Extending one arm, he sent a smoke stream towards the booth, blanketing red flame in white-grey ash. In his peripheral vision, Smoker could see the taproom patrons who’d retreated to the doorway gaping at him. Inside his smoke, somebody coughed, and then long, bare arms appeared, waving away the billows.

“All right, all right—enough already! It’s out, I swear.”

Smoker’s gaze snapped back toward his smoke, his eyes narrowing. What the—

The hidden speaker was right. The fire was out. Smoker pulled his smoke back into himself. Released from its grip, a body tumbled out of the booth and lay flat on the floor, panting.

Young, skinny, tanned. Black hair, shorts and boots, and not much else besides the log pose strapped to one wrist. That was Smoker’s first, fleeting impression of the kid sprawled across dirty tile. His second was more prosaic, and a lot more to the point.

Mera eater. Wonderful. Just what he and the rest of this island didn't need.

His interest in devil fruits was limited to understanding his own—its advantages as well as its limitations—and learning as much as he could about the other abilities he might come up against in a fight. The year after he’d eaten the moku moku, he’d joined the marines. For most of that year, he’d spent his spare time in the Academy library, reading everything he could find on his particular fruit. In the process, he’d memorized the list of other known logia fruits; out of all of them, it was the mera mera that had caught and held his attention.

According to various naval records, it was over a hundred years since a mera eater had been abroad in the world. What with the sheer destructive force its eater wielded, Smoker considered the long interregnum a damned good thing. The last known eater of the mera mera fruit had—so far as witnesses could tell—either lost control of his power or lost his mind shortly after the act of eating. Half of North Blue had been burnt to the ground, everything living consumed, before sentient flame had been extinguished.

In the end, it had taken five other logia eaters almost a week to track down and kill the rogue user. One of the five had been Smoker’s devil fruit counterpart of the time. Last century’s moku eater had tamped down the flames long enough for the other users to finish the mera eater off, but his personal price had been high. He’d died in the process.

Looking down at the sweating, shaking kid in front of him, Smoker figured that if he didn’t want to end up in the same sinking ship as his predecessor, he’d better get a handle on this situation now. Pushing himself off his stool, he stood up. He retrieved his last cigar from the bar, clamped it between his teeth, and felt through his pockets for his lighter.

“How long since you ate your fruit?”

A tremor ran through the rangy body on the floor. Eyelids gummed with smoke-induced tears slitted open. “How’d you know?” the kid croaked.

Smoker snorted. “Not a mark on you.”

“Oh yeah.” The kid opened his eyes fully; he ran a cursory glance over his unsinged body before turning his gaze on Smoker. “That was you?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Well... thank you.” The kid hesitated, chewing on his lower lip. “That could’ve gone bad pretty fast.”

“Understatement of the year, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid.” He shoved into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around his knees. Tilting his head back, he stared up at Smoker with undisguised interest. “I’ll be eighteen in a few months.”

Same age Smoker had been when he’d eaten his fruit. God save him from arrogant morons like his younger self. “How about I call you guilty of recklessly endangering the lives of this town’s citizens?” Cigar smoke trailed from Smoker’s mouth with every word, hazing the kid's face. “That work better?”

The kid flared up again, fire sparking in his hair and licking along his arms and torso with his rising anger. “This is the first time something like that's happened! I just—”

“Sure it is,” Smoker interrupted. “Bet you don’t flame every time some idiot pisses you off, either,” he added.

The kid flushed dull red. He opened his mouth, looking like he meant to let Smoker have it with both barrels, but by then Smoker’s smoke was wrapped around him, stifling incipient flames and pulling him in.

“Hey!”

Smoker hoisted the kid up and over his shoulder, holding on through the whipcord lash of surprising strength. He glanced at the barkeep, who’d gone back to cleaning glasses and filling beers as soon as the fire had gone out. “Is there a runoff barrel on the premises?” Smoker asked.

“Through there.” The man jerked his thumb towards a door set in the wall the bar abutted. “Go left—it’ll take you around back.”

“Let go, asshole! I'm gonna kick your ass so hard!”

“Thanks.” Ignoring increasingly violent threats, Smoker shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth and hitched the kid higher over his shoulder.

“Put me _down_ , you bastard, or I’ll—damn it, put me down!”

The barkeep was watching Smoker manhandle his prisoner through the door. “Need some help, Commander?”

“Not for this.” Smoker let the door bang shut behind him.

“Ow!”

If the kid didn’t know enough to duck, that was his problem.

\--

The rain barrel was tall, wide-mouthed and almost full. The kid made a nice splash going in. Smoker let him sit on the bottom for about five seconds before hauling him out.

He surfaced fighting—thrashing and sputtering, his lungs heaving to choking life. Smoker held him up by the back of his neck, hooked his hands over the sides of the barrel, and let go. He hung there, fingers clutching at rough wood, gulping air like he’d been without for a week instead of a couple of measly seconds, and glared at Smoker.

If looks could kill, Smoker would have been dead and buried. The kid hacked up some more water. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“It should be pretty hard to light anything up from in there.” Smoker crossed his arms and met the kid’s furious eyes. “Can’t even move your legs, can you?”

“I know what water does to a devil fruit user. My—I lived with someone who was one for years. I don’t need an object lesson.”

He was already moving before the kid finished speaking. He braced his hands on the rim of the barrel and bent over until there were maybe six inches between the kid’s face and his. “I don’t know what you think you know, but I’m willing to bet it’s close to nothing. What type of fruit did your friend eat? Zoan? Paramecia?”

The kid jumped a little at the second. Grim satisfaction filled Smoker’s mind. “That’s what I thought.” He straightened, pulled the half-smoked cigar from his mouth.

“Kid,” he said, “you’re logia. Unlike paramecia, logia doesn’t mean a few interesting side effects. Logia means you are your element. Unlike a zoan, you don’t have the basic connection humans share with animals. You’re fire."

"No shit! I-"

Smoker didn't let the kid finish, overriding whatever he'd been about to say with, "No, you _know_ shit. You think fire gives a damn what it burns? When your fire is all there is of you, when it’s all that’s left of your mind, you won’t care either. Learn to control it or it’ll control you.”

The kid's mouth was still half open. His eyes had gotten wider with every sentence. Now they were black holes in a face white under its tan. He looked scared shitless.

Good, Smoker thought. Time for him to wake up and realize what he was capable of _before_ he lost it and took an island along for the ride.

“I told you.” The kid’s voice was low and scratchy from a combination of smoke and water. “I’ve been logia for almost six months and this is the first something like this has happened. Yeah, things were kind of weird for a week after I ate it, but I’ll swear to whatever god you want, I was fine afterwards.”

“Sure about that?”

“Yes!”

Frowning, Smoker studied the kid’s face. That desperate, almost feverish look wasn’t feigned. He was telling the truth, which meant—

“You did something today you normally wouldn’t.” It wasn’t a question. Smoker expected confusion, maybe even protest, so he was slightly surprised when the kid turned beet red from neck to hairline and mumbled something Smoker didn’t catch.

“Say again?”

“All I did was kiss the guy!”

Ten seconds was all the time Smoker’s brain needed to add here, multiply there, then divide the result by the kid’s age. Damn it. He squeezed his eyes shut against a vision he didn’t want, but it just sprang to full, explicit life on the backs of his closed lids.

He didn't _need_ this. Not right now and not later. Not ever. “Is this the first time you’ve tried since you ate your fruit?” he said aloud, already sure of the answer.

“…Yeah.”

Smoker took a last drag from his cigar and dropped it onto stone cobbles, grinding it out under his boot. With one hand and a coil of smoke, he hauled the kid out of the barrel.

The kid looked more like a drowned rat than anything human, but his fire was already drying him, waves of steam rising off him like heavy mist. The flesh under Smoker’s hand was hot enough to burn normal skin. They looked at each other: the kid’s hand on Smoker’s shoulder, Smoker’s fingers wrapped around the kid’s wrist.

Smoker read the question clear in the kid’s eyes. His mouth thinned around nothing; his lack of cigar bothered him more than it should have. “This is a bad idea.”

“I know.”

“I'm not stupid enough for this.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

Smoker’s fingers tightened on the kid’s wrist. “Blackmail is an ugly word, kid.”

“Who said anything about blackmail?” There was nothing but straightforward innocence in the kid’s eyes. Then they narrowed. "I told you not to call me kid."

“I make a point of not taking advice from mouthy punks. And you didn’t have to say anything. That’s my other point,” Smoker said, and then he backed the kid up against the inn wall and kissed him.

When Smoker lifted his mouth from the kid’s, they were both breathing hard. The scorch marks on stone and wood would have been a lot worse if Smoker hadn’t been what he was. Thin, bony fingers had dug themselves into Smoker’s biceps; the kid’s erection was a hard demand against his thigh. Smoker’s own cock throbbed like a deep bruise—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted inside another person as much as he did this stupid fire eater.

He wondered momentarily if that was a side effect of matching logia, then decided it didn’t matter. He was past caring. If he didn’t have the promise of a bed upstairs, he’d have fucked the kid staring at him out of lust-black eyes through the wall.

“Got a room?” A hoarse croak, the kid’s voice rubbed Smoker’s ears the wrong way and his hormones exactly right. His fingers clenched on prominent hipbones.

“Yes.”

“What are we standing around out here for, then?”

\--

They almost torched the inn on the way up. The kid’s back hit the stairwell wall and Smoker shoved him flat against it—took his mouth without leave or apology. The kid sunk his fingers into the bare muscle of Smoker’s back and pushed into the pressure of Smoker’s mouth on his. Just as hungry. Just as demanding.

The smell reached Smoker’s nose first. He jerked his mouth free and dragged the kid away from the wall. They studied the burnt outline of twined bodies.

“Still think you’ve got your fruit handled?”

“Shut up.” He got a quick view of gritted teeth and angry eyes and then the kid’s mouth was back against his. The kid bit down on Smoker’s lip hard enough to draw blood, then abruptly let go and shoved Smoker into the hall. Smoker wrapped his fingers around one bony wrist and yanked.

Flame crackled angrily. “Damp it down,” Smoker growled, towing the kid after him down the hall. He stopped in front of a door whose number matched the ten on Tashigi’s key, pushed it to and pushed the kid through. The stupid brat landed on his ass on the floor, laughing breathlessly. No light was on, but someone—either the cleaning staff or maybe Tashigi—had left the curtains open. Moonlight drenched the room.

“You’re the same color as your smoke, you know that?”

Smoker’s gaze fell from the window to the attitude problem on the floor. The kid had already kicked his boots off. He was unfastening the log pose from his wrist and staring quizzically up at Smoker, his head cocked. “You always been that way, or did it happen after you ate your fruit?”

“Both. You want to tell me what an East Blue brat is doing with a log pose and a devil fruit power?”

“Nope.” Chucking the pose at the room’s central table, the kid went to work on his belt and shorts. “Should probably lose the jeans. Even you can’t fuck somebody through that much denim.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I doubt it.” The kid pushed himself up off the floor. The shorts stayed where they were. Bare feet kicked themselves free of dark material, and Smoker was suddenly looking at almost six feet of unashamedly bare-assed probably-a-pirate.

“Oh yeah,” the kid bent over his discarded shorts, providing Smoker with a view that could’ve given a dead man a hard-on. He tugged something free of the cloth and tossed it onto the bed.

Smoker glanced from the white tube lying on dark blankets back to the kid’s face. “Just a kiss?”

A slight shrug. “When I go after something, I don’t fuck around.” He walked towards Smoker, polished boards creaking under his feet, only stopping when Smoker could feel radiant heat. His eyes searched Smoker’s face. Smoker had no clue what he was looking for, but he must have found it, because between one second and the next, the heat grew in volume and intensity.

Smoker watched the kid’s fire pulse under his skin, too close to the surface for comfort; his smoke seethed in response. _You damn fool._

“You can’t get your head around me, can you?” said the kid softly. “Can’t shut your brain off and let go for ten minutes at a time. Or did you use them up outside?”

One finger at a time, Smoker unclenched his fists. He lifted a hand, settled his open palm on the join of neck and shoulder. His thumb brushed the kid’s pulse. “It'll be more than minutes,” he said evenly.

The body so close to his stilled, aside from beat of life against his thumb. The kid smiled at him. Not the smartass grin the brat wielded like a knife, but a real smile, freely given, and Smoker looked down into a face that was both too young and too old and… let go.

Smoke poured through denim and leather. Smoker’s clothes joined the kid’s shorts on the floor, and then he was flesh again, toppling the kid onto the bed beneath him.

Immediately, long legs and arms wrapped themselves around him. The kid's hard slick cock slid and rubbed against his erection, and a warm mouth opened under his own. The kid kissed like he meant it—like he expected this to be the last thing he’d ever do and intended to make every breath of it count—and his mouth and tongue and hands demanded equal reciprocation.

He had just enough sanity left to hesitate. Bracing his hands against the mattress, he pushed himself up, pulled his mouth free of inhumanly hot lips and propped himself over the kid splayed out beneath him.

For a moment Smoker held himself there, not moving. Just looking. His gaze drifted over half-lidded eyes, kiss-bruised mouth and freckled cheeks. The fire deep in the kid’s eyes flared, flame rippled over smooth skin, and Smoker decided that this right here was going to be one of the biggest mistakes of his life. The few times he’d done something purely for himself it’d always turned out wrong, and this kid was an unquestionable self-indulgence. Because the kid was… he was… hell.

Yeah, hell was about right. He was hell—fiery hot, searing hell and Smoker didn’t give a damn. “Done this before?”

The question stretched out between them, growing tenuous with expanding silence. The kid grinned crookedly. “Nah. That’s okay, though.” Strong hands grasped Smoker’s forearms. “I learn fast,” he said, and pulled Smoker back down on top of him.

If learning fast meant the willing arch of the kid’s body into Smoker’s hands; if it meant hands unafraid to touch whatever part of Smoker they came across, then Smoker had to agree. If it meant the strangled sounds that poured out of the kid when Smoker pushed his legs up and back, then sucked the kid’s cock into his mouth, the kid had the art of fast learning down to a science.

And when Smoker reached for the white tube stuck beneath bunched sheets, the kid met his eyes fearlessly and spread himself open even farther, exposing the tight pucker beneath drawn-up balls.

“Turn over.”

No hesitation. Up on knees, bent forward; head bowed, resting against forearms.

Smoker ran a hand the length of the kid’s spine, watched the almost feline arch of muscled back and the rise of flame. It flared under his hands and died beneath his smoke. “Control, brat.” He sat back on his heels and popped the cap on the tube. “Isn’t that what this is about?”

“No, this is about me finally getting laid,” the kid’s voice sounded strained, even through muffling arms. He shot a brief, frustrated look at Smoker over his shoulder then dropped his head back down on the mattress. “I’m on my knees with my ass in the air. How much more of an invitation do you n—ah!”

“That works fine,” said Smoker. He pressed his lube-slicked finger deeper into the grudging give of the kid’s hole. His free hand gripped the kid’s hip, holding him in place. “Keep your fire tamped, and I’ll keep doing this.”

“God, you’re a bastard,” the kid whined. “Shit!”

Two fingers, a tight fit even with lube. Smoker twisted them together and pushed in deeper, curling them slightly upwards as he pulled them out. He pushed back in, repeated drag and curve, and beneath his hands the kid twisted and panted and choked on breath and stifled groans. Hot red licked the set of rigid shoulders; Smoker slid his fingers all the way out.

“ _Bastard_.”

“Yeah, but I doubt you mean it the way I do,” Smoker slicked his cock and tossed the lube away. He leaned down over the kid, hands cupping hips, thumbs first grazing the crease between tight ass cheeks then spreading them wide.

Lining his cockhead up with the kid’s hole, Smoker pressed in. Not much. Just enough for the kid to feel it. Just enough for the tip of his cock to feel the clench of resistant muscle. He waited, not pushing forward but not pulling back either; waited for the kid’s body to open up and let him in.

The dark head still rested against the mattress. Smoker saw the clench of the kid’s fingers into the sheets. “All right?”

“Sure,” rough and hoarse. Muscle strained and bunched under Smoker’s hands. “Come on, old man. I’m a virgin, not a freaking girl.”

Push, pull. Slide forward an inch, two inches, and keep sliding forward, all the way inside.

Smoker watched his cock disappear slowly inside the kid’s body and slide back out just as slowly. He did it again, still slow, but not as, and the kid’s whole body seemed to convulse around him, muscles expanding and contracting in on themselves at the same time.

“Please!” The body pressed against his was shaking. He wrapped an arm around the kid’s waist and straightened up, pulling until the kid’s back was resting against his chest. Long legs splayed themselves open over his thighs.

He rubbed his palms over taut inner thighs, pressed the pads of his fingers into quivering muscle. The kid muffled a groan against Smoker’s skin. He was completely hard, his cock jutting up and slightly out, the head glistening with clear fluid. Smoker wrapped a hand around the shaft and slid his thumb over the head, spreading pre-come evenly. The muscle gripping Smoker’s cock spasmed--

“God! I just—I can’t—I need to—just fuck me or jerk me or do _something_ before I lose it, okay?” the kid gasped.

Smoker didn't laugh. Maybe he smiled. Whatever. The kid couldn't see. "Okay."

He stroked the kid’s cock once, twice, and felt the tension in the kid’s body ratchet up another notch. His free hand dipped between the kid’s thighs. When he cupped the tight-drawn sac, the kid’s cock jumped against the pull of his fingers—a new drop of fluid beaded and leaked from the slit. He reached farther down, past the kid’s balls, down to where his cock stretched him open.

Smoker traced the penetration of cock into hole with one finger. He could feel the throb of both their heartbeats in the connection, and he almost wanted to press a finger in alongside his cock, to touch from the inside.

The kid’s breath sped up, coming in short, hard bursts. His cock jerked in Smoker’s hand. Smoker leaned down and in until his mouth was touching the kid’s ear. “Come.”

He didn’t move. Neither of them did. His hand tightened around the kid's cock again and the kid’s head dropped back against his shoulder, mouth open silent. No sound but the harsh mix of their breathing, no movement but the rippling clench of the kid’s ass around Smoker’s cock, the dig of the kid’s nails into his thighs.

Semen spilled hot and wet over Smoker’s fingers. Flame tracked from the corners of the kid’s open eyes and down his cheeks, was reabsorbed into inhuman skin. Smoker laid his forehead against the kid’s shoulder and let the kid’s orgasm pull his out of him. Let the weight of shared release drag them down together.

\--

“Are those something else that happened after?”

Smoker glanced at the cigar in his hand, then down at the kid lounging beside him. He'd buried his face in a pillow, but now he raised his head and flipped himself onto his side, one eyebrow cocked in question.

The movement exposed the left side of the kid’s body; Smoker could finally make out the tattoo on his arm. “I’ll tell you when I started smoking if you tell me why you’ve got a crossed out S inked into your hide.”

The kid laughed. “It’s a short, boring story, believe me. Tell you what, though—next tatt I get, I’m doing it sober and alone.”

Smoker mentally subtracted the S and fit the rest of the letters into a spoken word, “Ace. Your name?”

“Yeah.” Ace raised his arm, twisting it and looking down the outward curve of bicep into deltoid. He traced a finger over the tattoo. “My real one. Dunno what I was thinking." His smile flickered oddly. "Maybe that I was so drunk I figured I’d need the reminder next morning. Maybe it was something else." He shrugged, and the strange expression left his face. "Next one’ll be for my captain.”

“You’re a pirate.” Smoker was very sure of that.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.” Moonlight glittered pale in black eyes. “Does it matter?”

Right now? No. Tomorrow would be a different story. “If being sworn to bring every pirate I can to justice means something, then yes. It matters.”

There was a long beat of silence. “I guess that’d make you a marine.”

“Most of the time.”

Ace’s grin nudged the corners of his mouth. “Not tonight?”

“I’m off duty,” said Smoker, irony edging his tone. “In the morning I’m taking command of this town, and after that you’d better watch yourself, pirate, or I’ll be all over you.”

“Biggest balls in the Blues, eh?” Ace’s voice was ripe with laughter. Smoker clamped a hand over his nape.

“Don’t get smart with me. You’ll be wrapped in seastone before you can pull your head out of your ass.” He was only half kidding.

The laughter running through Ace’s voice erupted, and then Smoker was on his back, Ace’s hands pinning his shoulders, Ace’s mouth hot on his skin. “Dawn’s still a ways off, old man,” Ace breathed against Smoker’s neck. “Don’t count ‘em before they’re hatched.”

“Not if you’re the one keeping an eye on the damned things.”

Ace nipped at Smoker’s skin then licked the bite. “Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” he snickered, but Smoker—tired of pointless back and forth—firmed his grip on the back of Ace’s neck and dragged Ace's mouth down to his, shutting him up before he could say something even more annoying or disconcerting than he already had.

\--

“Commander Smoker! Commander! Sir, wake up sir!”

Smoker opened his eyes. It wasn’t like he could avoid it—impossible to sleep through all that pounding and shouting. For a skinny runt, Tashigi had a surprising amount of lung capacity.

“Commander!”

“I’m up. You can stop yelling.”

“Yes sir. Sorry to wake you, sir, but there’s fire in the town. They say it’s contained, but I thought you’d want to know.”

Smoker threw back the sheet and swung his legs out of bed. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“Yes sir,” was Tashigi’s subdued reply. Smoker listened to the thump of her retreating footsteps for a second, then glanced at the other half of wrecked, slightly-singed sheets. They were empty, not unexpectedly.

He was surprised by his faint feeling of regret, as well as unsure if he considered the abnormal emotion a good or bad thing. He shrugged both reactions off as irrelevant and reached for his jeans.

Sticky skin adhered uncomfortably to denim; Smoker would have liked a shower, but didn’t want to waste time. He settled for shifting to smoke then back again, which got rid of the worst of the dried sweat and come. He pulled his jeans the rest of the way on, stamped his feet into his boots and looked around for the remainder of his gear.

Thankfully, Tashigi was nothing if not conscientious. Smoker’s jitte leaned against the far wall; his jacket hung from the back of the room’s single chair.

Jeans, jacket, jitte… gloves. Right. Smoker shut the door firmly behind him and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. He was halfway down the inn stairs when he realized that the smoke smell lingering in the air wasn’t coming from him.

\--

The burn area covered about twenty square feet by another twenty square feet. Twenty square feet (length and width) of cobbled stone. The lines of it were precise, as though drawn by a professional. Only, no professional artist Smoker knew of used charcoaled stone as their medium. And no professional artist was going to splash Edward Newgate’s insignia across the same town square containing Gol D. Roger’s execution scaffold.

No artist had curled that arrogant ‘A’ around one bone of Whitebeard’s Jolly Roger either. Smoker had been right: last night had made the top ten of his personal all-time-stupid list. The proof was spread out at his feet, smouldering sullenly.

Sending just enough of his smoke to blanket the black design, Smoker smothered the last glowing embers. When he could no longer feel even the flicker of fire, he drew the smoke back into himself and stared some more at the mera mera version of graffiti. The damned thing was perfect down to the last detail; it had been burnt into the stone with careful precision. Smoker guessed that was the brat’s way of thumbing his nose at Smoker for all but calling him a criminally careless punk.

_See, old man? I can be careful. If I feel like it._

His gaze fixed on the still hot symbol, Smoker stuck the cigar he held into his mouth. After a moment’s consideration, he pulled out a second and bit down on that as well, then said to the silent woman beside him, “Tashigi.”

“Yes sir?”

“Get back to the ship. Grab Marston and Takashi and then the three of you head for the base and tell them that their commander expects two full squadrons assembled at docks nine and ten on the double.”

Tashigi bit her lip. “Sir, I—”

“That was an order, Chief Petty Officer, not a request.”

“Yes sir!”

Smoker ignored Tashigi’s salute and subsequent retreat. He dug his lighter from his hip pocket and, for the first time but probably not the last, lit paired cigars.

“Um, excuse me?”

Smoker turned his head. A woman hovered a few feet away from him, a solemn-eyed child clinging to her hand. She smiled nervously at Smoker. “Is it safe to go across?”

He followed her gaze to the mark that covered a good portion of the square. “Walk around it.”

"Thank you." Another smile, brighter and more natural. “For putting it out.”

Smoker nodded curtly. He hadn’t really, just beat back some of the heat, but he didn’t feel the need to explain. The thing had been well on its way to cooling. The kid _had_ been careful—proving a point as well as making a statement. Goddamn pirate brat.

A thin trickle of humanity followed the woman and her child, and soon the square was full of foot-traffic. At first, Whitebeard’s symbol was given a wide berth, but either the heat wasn’t bad enough to register or the burnt area had cooled down fast because within ten minutes people were tromping over it like it didn’t exist.

Smoker leaned against the brick wall of a patisserie, smoking and watching charred lines blur under uncaring feet. A squawk of gulls flew overhead and Smoker’s gaze tracked them towards the harbor. In the distance, a forest of ship masts rose, one after the other. He could see three Jolly Rogers from where he stood.

He had no doubt there were more where those had come from. By tomorrow, there wouldn’t be any. He’d stake his somewhat shaky reputation on it.

Time to clean house. He'd start with his.

 

_somewhere down the Line…_

“What’s Whitebeard’s second division commander doing in Alabasta, Portgas?”

Ace sets his coffee cup down on the Spicebean’s counter with a decisive thump. The smile he just conjured up to charm the proprietor twists into a grin, and why not? He’s in a good mood. His stomach is pleasantly full, he’s going to see his brother sometime soon, and on top of that there’s the echo of a familiar growl in his ears.

Ace knows that growl well enough to qualify for intimacy. It's been a while since he last heard it, but he’s jerked off to the memory of it more than once over the years. He's... intimately acquainted with it and the person attached to it and also with that person's reactions. So he turns slowly—slow enough to piss the guy off worse than he probably already is—swiveling the stool around to face his past.

“I’m searching--” he tilts his hat brim out of his eyes-- “For my kid brother,” he finishes, and for the first time in two years, he gets a good look at the marines’ White Hunter.

He hadn’t known who Smoker was that night in Loguetown, hadn’t even gotten his name. It would have been kind of superfluous, given the circumstances. It was only after he’d left the island that he learned just who he’d tangled with—in more ways than one.

Looking back, he’s surprised Smoker didn’t take one look at his sooty message, hunt him down and nail his hide to closest wall. At the time, in some sick twisted corner of his soul he was almost disappointed Smoker hadn’t done either of those things. To this day the seastone cuff/smoke tentacle fantasy works almost as well as someone else’s hand.

Today Ace won’t need a few charcoal lines scrawled over stone to get his point across. This time the lines are etched into his back in glowing color, and Smoker has already had an eyeful.

Propping his elbows on the counter behind him, Ace gives Smoker a leisurely once over. He wonders how long it took him to match Portgas D. of the Whitebeard faction up with the cocky pirate kid he fucked through a Loguetown inn bed. Not long, probably. He was too smart for Ace’s good then, and Ace has no doubt he’s only gotten smarter with time.

Damned if the old bastard didn’t go and get hotter, too. Or maybe that’s just the jacket and jitte effect, which Ace missed out on three years ago. That plus the snarly expression. It ought to be illegal for so much pissed-off to look that good. It's a good thing Ace likes his shorts baggy.

Shifting slightly in his seat, he leans to one side, exposing more of his face. Smoker’s eyes narrow. Oh yeah. He’s been choking on this mouthful of burnt crow for a long while.

Ace feels his grin widen. “So. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Sit tight and let me arrest you.”

“Re-jec-ted. Sorry, no can do.”

“That’s what I expected.” Smoker breathes out a stream of exasperated smoke and briefly shuts his eyes. He looks, Ace thinks, like he wants to grind his teeth and pinch the bridge of his nose out of sheer aggravation.

“Right now, I’m after a different pirate,” he says instead. “I’m not that interested in your head.”

Ace shrugs—arms spread, hands open. “So let me go.”

“I can’t do that.” One gloved hand clenches. Smoke billows out around it. “Not as long as I’m a marine and you’re a pirate.”

“What a dumb reason.” Ace tilts his head back and raises an eyebrow. “Lighten up, old man,” he says, and then he shuts up before he chokes to death on his laughter because he’s already ass deep in bananawani and the look on Smoker’s face says he is so going to get it. Which sounds good to him, but then—

But then Luffy happens the way Luffy has been happening for as far back as Ace can remember.

Ace loves Luffy. True story. The brother thing aside, they’ve got a lot of shared history and lot in common. They’re also friends, the very best kind, and Ace has missed having Luffy to play and laugh and get into trouble with, and sometimes just to be quiet next to. Still, he does wish Luffy would work on this screwy timing thing he’s got going. After three years it still bites the big one, and in that only-Luffy way.

On the other hand, Luffy is apparently the impetus that got Smoker off his butt and back on the Line. In Ace’s book that evens things out considerably. He doesn’t need Luffy’s timing or time. He’s good at making his own.

Which is an _excellent_ thing, because Smoker’s? Just ran out.

[begin]


End file.
